NME put out their list of the best albums of 2009. As I expected, it’s full of noisy, obscure Indie bands whose hipster factor outweighs their actual musical talent. I hadn’t heard of most of the bands (not surprising. I’m not British and I don’t read the NME) but I had a few of the albums on the list. Here’s my rankings, based on the music and how much I listened to that album:

Artist

Album

My Rank

NME Rank

Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand Tonight:

1

43

Lily Allen

It’s Not Me, It’s You

2

25

Kasabian

West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

3

11

Arctic Monkeys

Humbug

4

12

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It’s Blitz!

5

3

Phoenix

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

6

34

Florence And The Machine

Lungs

7

26

Empire Of The Sun

Walking On A Dream

8

42

Passion Pit

Manners

9

37

Bat For Lashes

Two Suns

10

22

So me and the NME don’t agree… At all. I listened to the top 10 and was not impressed. Methinks their writers are just trying to one-up each another in an inter-office indie battle of artfullness, disregarding what the listeners think.

Backstory:I got my Greencard in 2006…and just became eligible for Citizenship this year.

So many people think that you get handed a passport a few months after you marry an American. That could NOT be further from the truth!!

The Greencard process involved an expensive Lawyer, and Mike proving that he could ‘sponsor’ my Residency. We had to produce tax Returns and paychecks, I had to go for a physical to test for AIDS and Tuberculosis, and then we had a swift interview where we had to prove the validity of our relationship. Continue reading Becoming an American→

It’s one of those ubiquitous literary titles that makes you groan with the memory of 11th grade English, lengthy essays and head-bashingly complex prose. But banish that thought! It’s hilarious, light-hearted and silly. And it reads easily, despite being a play.